


In Another Time

by ElDiablito_SF



Series: Snippets in Time [17]
Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas, d'Artagnan Romances (Three Musketeers Series) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 13:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is 1634 and all roads lead back to Roche-L'Abeille.  Aramis gets a letter which threatens to turn everyone's life upside down.  Athos develops the worst mental illness he had encountered yet:  fatherhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The author in no way advocates having children. But if you choose to do so, then at least do not abuse them.
> 
> (Originally posted on LJ on Feb 11, 2011)

 

           Athos woke up because he was cold.  The bolster that was somehow cleverly shoved into his arms to substitute the warm body that had been sleeping there earlier, no longer retained its former occupant’s warmth and, therefore, barely fulfilled its designated role in the charade.  Athos rubbed his eyes and spanned the white expanses of their bed with a terrified look.  Pushing the offensively deceptive pillow away from himself with disgust, he could feel drops of cold sweat forming on his forehead.

            Every day, for nearly a year now, he awoke with the fear of finding his arms empty like this again.  Although each night, as soon as his body hit the mattress of the new bed that Aramis had specifically brought to Bragelonne to replace the “travesty” Athos had been sleeping on before, that warm and catlike form always rolled deftly into his arms, and clung to him until morning.  Athos had never been so happy in his life before, and, at the same time, never more terrified of the impermanence of his happiness, the sand-like quality of these blissful moments, spilling so pitilessly through the hourglass of his life.

            Aramis promised he would stay as long as he wanted him.  Then where the hell was he?  _I only swear to those things which I have direct control over._   Instinctively, Athos cast a defensive look at his lover’s pillow, expecting to see another piece of paper on it.  _My love, please forgive me._

            “You look like you’ve seen a veritable _army_ of ghosts,” Aramis said, gliding into the room and slipping back under the covers, having carelessly tossed off his dressing gown.

            “Where the hell did you go?” Athos asked, with a pleading tone in his voice which slightly disgusted him.

            “I went to empty my bladder.  Not to join a monastic community.  Am I not allowed to do that without your express permission?”  Not waiting to hear a reply, Aramis rewrapped his limbs around the torso of Athos and pulled him back onto the pillows.

            “Sorry,” Athos mumbled, settling back into the warmth, allowing it to wash over his body, letting his heart beat return to its usual slow, steady rhythm again.

            “Hope you weren’t planning on getting up just yet,” the touch of Aramis’s lips tickled his earlobe.

            “The most important thing on my ‘To Do’ list for the day is right here,” Athos mused.

            “Your life is full of hardships, M. le comte,” Aramis’s fingers were outlining the grooves of his abdomen, drawing geographic shapes around his ribs.

            “Mmmm, hardships,” Athos agreed, and buried his face in the hollow of his lover’s neck, making a mental note to have no more thoughts for at least the following half an hour.

 

            It was around the time that they were settling down to have lunch that Grimaud pulled Athos aside and intimated to him by a series of private, yet clearly obscene, gestures that Bazin had arrived and had a message for Monsieur d’Herblay.  Athos made an eloquent hand movement indicative of exasperation and surrender in one, letting Grimaud know to allow the other man in.

            “I’m happy to see you overcome your initial instincts of having him stoned,” Aramis smirked, clearly having figured out the meanings behind the master and servant’s secret language some time ago.

            “I find the magnanimousness within myself to not kill that which you find useful,” Athos responded, kissing his friend’s hand with mock gallantry.

            “You truly are a prince among men,” Aramis responded with the same dead-pan expression.

            Bazin entered the dining room, casting fearful and suspicious glances in the direction of the master of the house.  Athos, with an especially friendly and purposefully radiant smile, calmly sat down at the table and started to eat the cheese, in such a way that, despite the lackey’s best efforts to force those thoughts out of his mind, was forcefully suggestive.

            “Monsieur l’abbé,” Aramis’s old lackey made a reverential bow towards his master, causing Athos to roll his eyes and chase the cheese with a hefty swallow of wine.

            “I told you to call me _chevalier_ when we’re not _working_.”  There was no doubt by the tone of his voice, and the emphasis he put on his final word, Aramis was irate.

            “This letter came for you, Chevalier, and I did not trust anyone else to deliver it,” the little man said with another, albeit more restrained, bow.  Taking out the letter from the folds of his doublet, Bazin handed the sealed missive to his master, and cast another suspicious look in the direction of Athos, as if expecting to get kicked.

            Aramis only had to glace at the writing on the paper to know that lunch was about to get ruined.  “Go,” he curtly dismissed Bazin, who still stood by his side, eagerly awaiting entertainment.

            “Grimaud!” Athos called out to the flitting apparition of his silent servant.  “Please see to your… _friend_.”  With these words, Bazin was scurried out of the dining room and away from his master, whose presence he seemed to crave like the sun.  The servants out of earshot, Athos turned to his companion and asked, “Well?  Aren’t you going to read it?”

            “I don’t know what she could possibly want,” Aramis retorted, defensively, nervously filling his cup with wine.

            “There is only one way to find out,” Athos shrugged, and directed his attention towards bread.

            “I have not corresponded with her,” Aramis said, the letter still lying unopened on the table before him.

            “I am not accusing you of anything,” Athos was making something vaguely duck-shaped out of the bread.

            “Do _you_ want to open it?”

            “NO!”  Athos shoved the bread-duck into his mouth and refilled his own wine cup.

            “I’m sorry that you can even recognize her handwriting,” Aramis added, still not touching the piece of paper.

            “Aramis… I… I trust you.” Athos could barely even believe that those words just came out of his mouth, but he knew them to be true, otherwise he would not have spoken them.  His friend could not know the true reason that he was feeling this flustered at the sight of that familiar, wide, feminine handwriting.  “Just… open it.”

            With a sigh, Aramis broke the seal and quickly devoured the contents of the letter with his eyes.

            “Truly,” he said, putting the letter aside again with a look of bewilderment in his bright eyes.  “I have not the slightest idea what this is all about.  But if you ask me, it _smells_ of intrigue.”

            “Of course, what else would it smell like?” Athos offered, while thinking, _Lavender_.  Aramis emitted a small chuckle.  “Besides, it’s what you and she had the most in common.”

            “Now, now.  You weren’t _there_.”

            “Yes, please, tease me.”  Athos shot his lover a dangerous look.  _Actually, I kind of was,_ he added in his own head.

            “I, honestly, do not have the smallest inkling of what this letter is in reference to.  Something about a parsonage… and a package… and how she wants me to look in on the package to make sure it’s being _taken care of properly_.  Athos, I swear to you, what on _earth_?”  Aramis pushed the letter across the table and tapped it with his elegant finger.  “Go ahead.  Read it.”

            “I don’t need to read it,” Athos moved away from the letter as if it were going to bite him.  “I told you, I trust you.”

            “Yes, but if I’m to go to some god-forsaken village that I have never heard of in my life, to which I’m incidentally making you come with me, you should at least know _why_.”

            “What village?”  Athos felt his pulse speed up again.

            “I don’t know.  Roche… Something-or-Other.”

            “Roche-L’Abeille?” Athos bit his own tongue.

            “Maybe?” Aramis glanced over at the letter again.  “Yes.  Why?  You know it?”

            “Hm,” Athos responded, and snatched the letter off the table. 

            _My dear cousin_ , the letter began.  “Hah!” Athos could not help but exclaim at this all-too-familiar salutation.

            _My dear cousin,_

_It is quite some time since we have had news of you, and, times being what they are, we would not be writing to you were it not absolutely necessary.  As you may have heard, I have had to go away for some time, as the climate in France is too deleterious for my weak condition.  There is a certain package, all too dear to me, that I was not able to take with me on my journey, and have had to leave it at the parsonage of Roche-L’Abeille.  I have no one else to ask, so I am asking you.  If ever our family relations were dear to you, I beseech you to go to Roche-L’Abeille and make sure this package is being taken care of properly.  In another time, it could have belonged as much to you as it does to me.  As you are a man of honor, I know I can rely on you and your discretion in this, my dearest cousin.  I hope our separation is not too lasting._

_Affectionately yours,_

_Marie Michon_

            Slowly, Athos refolded the piece of paper and lay it back down on the table.  _I think I’m going to die_ , he thought.  He forced himself to direct his gaze back towards Aramis and look into his friend’s vaguely amused eyes.

            “Fascinating,” he stated, schooling his facial expression.

            “Isn’t it?” Aramis was calmly buttering his bread.

            “You… want me to come with you then?” Athos was pressing his nails into the palm of his hand.

            “First of all, yes.  Second, I don’t suppose you’d ever let me out of your sight for that long.  And third, I hate making you worry.”  Aramis gave his friend a playful and charming smile and got up from the table.

            “Really, you just had me at ‘yes.’” Athos also got up and tried to give his physiognomy his most nonchalant appearance.

            “Then let us go to Roche-L’Abeille and glean what Marie Michon has been up to this time around!”

            “You look positively ecstatic,” Athos smirked, pulling Aramis into an impromptu embrace.  “I knew you were getting bored here,” he whispered, nuzzling against the side of his lover’s face.

            “With you?  Never!” Aramis protested.  “Come, bore me some more upstairs, before we must take the road.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

“So, Aramis,” Athos said quietly, hoping to keep his voice steady by lowering the timbre, “Maybe I can go in there by myself and see if I can make some inquiries.” The stones of the parsonage of Roche-L’Abeille seemed to be laughing in his face. _Father, you were magnificent._ Athos shuddered.

“Oh right, like I’m going to let you enter the House of God alone?” Aramis laughed and dismounted.

“Are you afraid I’ll be struck down by lightning?”

“No! I’m afraid you’re going to be overcome with lust and ravage the first person you see in there, you deviant!”

Athos was sure that he was blushing the deepest red that he’s ever blushed in his entire life, and he was not particularly known to be the blushing kind. Aramis was already walking with careless steps towards the parsonage. I am doomed, Athos thought, and followed him in, with a wilted demeanor. Perhaps the priest will not recognize me, he prayed.

He knew his prayers would not be answered when the good-natured prelate, who had sheltered him so kindly about a year ago, greeted them both and veered towards Athos with an expression of pure bewilderment on his face, “Oh, Monsieur! The strangest thing!”

“I suppose now would be a good time for me to thank you for your hospitality,” Athos said to the man, avoiding Aramis and his poignant looks. “I see that despite a year having passed, you still have an excellent memory.”

“I have always had a great memory for faces, Monsieur, yes. And, either way, one does not get enough visitors of quality here for me to forget.” The priest looked from one man to the other with a curious twinkle in his eyes. “Perhaps you gentlemen can help me solve a mystery?”

“Solving mysteries is our specialty, Monsieur le Curé,” Aramis replied, politely, while shooting furtive daggers out of his eyes at his downcast friend.

“We at the parsonage,” the priest said, taking them each by the elbow and leading them further into the chapel at the center of the building structure, “are in receipt of an unusual package. The only note we found with it said ‘October 11, 1633’ and, as Monsieur very well knows, I spent that entire night at the side of a dying man.”

“Does the Monsieur?” Aramis hissed at Athos.

“ _Later_ ,” the latter mouthed back. “Yes, I remember that night very well,” he added, loudly this time, addressing the priest. “What was in the package, Monsieur le Curé?”

“A baby boy.”

“ _A WHAT?_ ” both Athos and Aramis gasped out simultaneously.

“A baby boy, Messieurs,” the priest repeated. “About three months born, by the looks of him.” He glanced from one man to the other again with a hopeful look, but seeing only expressions of various degrees of pure horror, he sighed. “I take it then, you know nothing about this?”

Aramis appeared to come to his senses first and turned to the priest, “What a mystery indeed, Monsieur! And might it be possible to see the note?”

“And the baby,” Athos added quickly.

“Of course, Messieurs,” the priest replied, “Right away, Messieurs, if you would care to wait right here.” He began to move away towards the sacristy door, and turned back, as if remembering something. “The strangest thing, Messieurs!” he exclaimed again. “And such fine linens.” And with these words, the honest fellow disappeared, leaving the two men quite alone in the chapel.

For a few moments, the two friends stood as they were, as if each had been nailed to the spot, neither one of them daring to make eye contact with the other. Finally, Aramis shook his head, as if literally trying to clear the cobwebs surrounding his mind.

“All right,” he spoke, gathering his thoughts. “The letter is making more sense now. But what I don’t understand is… what does this have to do _with you_???”

“ _In another time, it could have belonged as much to you as it does to me_ ,” Athos responded, quoting the letter.

“Yes, adorable, but..,” Aramis composed himself again. “That baby is not mine, no matter what that letter insinuated.”

“Then it must be mine,” Athos sighed and walked over to the pews, plopping down into one of them.

“No, Athos, I am telling you. This baby cannot be mine.”

“I know. I heard you.”

“Then what are you talking about?” Aramis wanted very much to shake his friend, a desire he found to be pervasive and frequent with regards to Athos.

“I suppose there is no question as to who the mother is,” Athos mumbled in response.

“I hope you realize how _little_ sense all of this is making to me right now,” Aramis threw up his hands and approached the altar. “Help me!” Aramis addressed the crucifix with extended arms.

“Now you know as well as I do, He never kisses and tells.” Athos could not prevent this latest bit of acrimony from escaping his lips.

“I swear to you on the Holy Virgin,” Aramis veered upon his companion, feeling himself go livid, “If you do not start speaking in words I can understand imminently, I am going to throttle you where you sit!”

“Here he is!” came the announcement from the priest, who could not have chosen a better moment for reappearance, carrying a small bundle in his arms, and followed by a woman, who would have presumably been the wet-nurse.

Athos jolted up from the pews and Aramis looked as if the threat to throttle would be misdirected towards the new arrivals. The bundle made a small squawking sound.

“He’s really a very lovely child,” the priest said, practically cooing at the baby in his arms. “Alas, we are quite bereft of any resources here to care for an infant. Especially an infant that came with such fine linens.” The priest paused and looked from one man to the other again. “Which of you would like to hold him?”

“ _He_ would,” Aramis snapped, pointing an angry finger at his friend. Athos looked, mouth agape, first at Aramis, then at the priest, and finally at the inexplicably present peasant woman, and finding no succor anywhere, finally cast his eyes towards the squirming bundle.

“Fine,” he said, “Hand it over.” He extended one arm towards the bundle as if it were a loaf of bread or the butt of a musket. The peasant woman nervously muttered something under her breath that sounded a bit like “Ye must s’port ‘is ‘ead.” Still using his one arm, Athos pressed the baby to his chest and looked curiously at the little scrunched face. “Don’t worry, I will not drop him.”

The boy was awake and looking up at him with surprisingly large dark eyes, not the piercing blues that he was half-expecting, knowing who the child’s mother was. Athos made a mental note to make sure the child was indeed male, then checked his thoughts, wondering whether it really made a difference. It wasn’t as if he was actually planning on raising the bastard. Was he?

“He’s really not that fussy,” the priest added, in passing, shaking Athos out of his contemplation of the facial features of the tiny creature balanced on his forearm.

“What’s his name?” Athos asked, still unable to tear his eyes away from the miniscule button of a nose, the slightly-opened bow of a mouth, the dark curls that stuck out from under the swaddling cloth.

“We don’t know, Monsieur,” the priest shrugged, and then turned towards Aramis with a small piece of paper in his hand, “This was the note we found with him, Monsieur.”

Without a word, Aramis took the piece of paper and, bestowing upon it only a momentary glance, made it disappear into his glove.

“Monsieur le Curé,” Aramis spoke, his voice having returned to its usual melodious, soothing tone, “Would you mind giving my companion and myself some time alone?”

“Of course, Messieurs,” the priest gave a small bow and extended his arms towards the child.

“Leave the baby,” Athos said, turning his body instinctively away and ending up face to face with Aramis, whose eyes got impossibly wider. The priest and the wet-nurse quietly disappeared from the chapel by the same door to the sacristy.

“Do I even need to _say it_?” Aramis started.

“That I am insane?” Athos completed his lover’s thought, his eyes still on the eyes of the miniature being in his arms. He partially unwrapped the swaddling cloth to reveal a tiny arm that shot out towards his face and made an abortive grab for his hair.

“No, I guess I do not need to say it then,” Aramis began to pace in front of the altar.

“Look at how tiny and perfect he is!”

“What is this? Love at first sight?” Aramis stopped pacing, and stood in front of his friend with his arms crossed menacingly in front of his heaving chest.

“I wasn’t asking for this, Aramis. I was looking for _you_.”

“For the last time, before I kill both _you and the baby_ , will you tell me what is going on???”

“I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t even know where to begin.” Athos sighed. The baby made another squawking noise. Aramis walked over to the far corner of the chapel and hit his head against the wall. “All right, all right, don’t hurt yourself!” Athos called out, realizing that his inability to vocalize his thoughts was once again torturing everyone around him. Composing himself, he tried again, “You know I was looking for you. Everywhere. I don’t even know where anymore, but it did not matter at the time. I just… I kept going.”

“Well, I know Noisy-Le-Sec was not the first place you looked,” Aramis allowed, moving away from the wall.

“One night, I ended up here, at this very parsonage. I was exhausted. I had not slept for days and the only thing I ate was pretty much… um… all liquid.”

“None of this do I find shocking so far. Go on.”

“The priest was called away to a dying man, and he left me alone in the parsonage, with his dinner, bedroom, everything…”

“Go on,” Aramis pressed.

Athos groaned.

“What happened next?” Aramis walked up to his friend and stood within reach of him, but still casting suspicious glances towards the partially swaddled bundle of burgeoning humanity.

“Late at night, the parsonage received another visitor, a fellow traveler, as it were.”

“Who was it?”

“A woman, dressed as a man,” Athos raised his eyes to meet those of Aramis.

“Oh..,” Aramis emitted.

“I was half-asleep. I was drunk.” Athos averted his eyes and then shut them. “It was dark.”

“Oh….”

“I thought she was male.”

“Ohhhhhhh….”

“I did not know who she was.”

It was now Aramis’s turn to lower himself into the pews and hide his face in his hands, while shaking his head, and repeating only, “No, no, no, no, no.”

“The following morning, I recognized the mistress by her maid.”

“Kitty..,” Aramis whispered to himself, his thoughts becoming illuminated.

“And… then… I rode off as fast as I could. I ended up in Bracieux with Porthos, and you know the rest of the story.”

Aramis raised his eyes towards his friend and in them Athos saw something akin to both desperation and amusement, blending themselves into a special sort of madness.

“ _And you still question the existence of Divine Retribution?_ ”

Athos was not sure how to respond to that.

“What were the chances of this happening?” Aramis asked, actually breaking out into a terrifying laughter. The baby started to cry, possibly voicing on the behalf of both of the adults present their unspoken sentiments.

“You’re right. I should have known we’d both get punished for this,” Athos responded, trying to rock the baby back into silence and submission.

“Oh God, please, make it stop,” Aramis whined, forcing the palms of his hands into his eye sockets.

“I’m trying to,” Athos snapped. “Should I attempt breast-feeding?”

“You want him! Oh dear God… you actually want him,” Aramis moaned and buried his face in his hands again.

“One day, Aramis, you were going to leave me anyway. And he might not. Him, I can actually keep.” Once again, Athos had surprised himself by this unexpected torrent of truth spilling out of him, so inconveniently, and against his better judgment.

“What is this? What are you doing?” Aramis exploded out of the pews and walked straight up within inches of Athos’s face.

“Every day, I wake up afraid to find you gone.” Athos saw his friend about to speak, but halted him with a gesture. “No, stop. I _know_ you love me. I _know_ you have given up everything to be with me. And, honestly, I am not sure that I can _live_ with that.”

“So, you’d rather push me away yourself? You’d rather raise my former lover’s illegitimate child as your own than be with me?” The baby ceased his wailing, as if he knew that he was the topic of the discussion.

“She wanted you to come here and to make sure he was taken care of properly. Who better to take care of him than his father?”

“His _putative_ father!”

“She was right – this child could very well have been yours!”

“And _I_ would have left it in a nice orphanage and showered it with mysterious benefactor gold from the safety of anonymity and distance!”

“Aramis, I am taking the baby.”

“You intransigent asshole! What do you know of raising babies?”

“I have the means of hiring people who will know of raising babies.”

“Athos, not that you cared to even ask, but _I_ do not want to raise a baby.”

Athos said nothing, only looked from the face of Aramis to the newly mollified face of the infant in his arms.

“I don’t _want_ to leave. I don’t ever want to leave you again. I want to stay. Why are you pushing me away?” Aramis knew what he was saying was sounding dangerously close to begging. “Let’s take the child to a better place than this, but let us leave him somewhere else!”

“I know, Aramis, this is all self-fulfilling prophesy. But one day he will be the only reason I have for living.”

“Why are you talking to me as if I am no longer here? Why are you letting your deeply rooted insecurities ruin our actual present because of some fear of an imagined future?”

“Because I know you,” Athos responded. “And because I know myself.”

“ _You_ are making this choice, not I. I want you to remember that. This is your choice.” The baby was starting to whimper again, causing the hair on Aramis’s neck to prick up. He felt overwhelmed, there were a thousand daggers in his heart, and he was surrendering to their blows. He wanted to storm out, to get on his horse and ride away, but his legs felt leaden and he could have sworn that his very soul was aching. Suddenly, Aramis felt exhausted. His lover stood in front of him, his head hung low, the child pressed protectively into his chest. Taking a deep breath, Aramis took another step forward. “Ask me to stay, please,” he entreated, quietly.

“Stay,” Athos intoned, without a second’s passing. “Please,” he added. “I want you. I _need_ you.”

The baby pressed between them, Aramis put his arms around the other man and held him so that their cheeks were touching. They were locked together like that, the Unholy Trinity, for some moments, as Aramis came to terms with the feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was helpless to deny Athos in this, just as he had been in everything else.

“Fine,” he whispered in his lover’s ear. “For now then,” and he quickly walked out of the chapel, leaving Athos alone, with the baby in his arms, to have his own Madonna moment in the presence of Their Lord. He had already begun to make lists in his head of everything they would need to arrange before being able to travel back to Bragelonne with an infant in tow. It was quickly occurring to him that there was a not-too-far-fetched possibility that one day he would be looked for, that he would be asked, that she might want to know. _Where is my son?_ And Aramis also knew, with a bright burning fire of certainty, that when that day came, he would lie to her.


End file.
